Woman suffers smoke inhalation in College Avenue blaze

Firefighters skirt arcing electrical wires

Linda N. Weller The Telegraph

Updated
7:26 pm CDT, Tuesday, June 26, 2018

After an initial knock down of the fire that gutted the front portion of 1041 College Ave. in Alton shortly after 4 a.m. Tuesday, firefighters prepare to go back inside to finish extinguishing hot spots.

After an initial knock down of the fire that gutted the front portion of 1041 College Ave. in Alton shortly after 4 a.m. Tuesday, firefighters prepare to go back inside to finish extinguishing hot spots.

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After an initial knock down of the fire that gutted the front portion of 1041 College Ave. in Alton shortly after 4 a.m. Tuesday, firefighters prepare to go back inside to finish extinguishing hot spots.

After an initial knock down of the fire that gutted the front portion of 1041 College Ave. in Alton shortly after 4 a.m. Tuesday, firefighters prepare to go back inside to finish extinguishing hot spots.

Woman suffers smoke inhalation in College Avenue blaze

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ALTON — A probable electrical fire early Tuesday forced five occupants of a College Avenue house outside into the dark, with one tenant requiring treatment for smoke inhalation.

The house, at 1041 College Ave., suffered fire damage to its living room at the front of the home, and on the front porch. There is heat and smoke damage throughout the structure.

“The house is definitely repairable, the fire was contained to the living room and front porch,” said Chief Bernie Sebold of the Alton Fire Department. An AFD report lists damage to the house and its contents at $40,000. The chief said the fire was not suspicious, and its cause will be listed as “probably electrical, but undetermined.”

“After the fire was extinguished, we believe the fire probably was electrical-involved,” Sebold said. “In the origin — the living room — we found multiple items plugged into a power strip, and the home has old wiring.”

Someone reported the fire at 4:02 a.m.

“Upon arrival, fire crews witnessed fire venting out the front window and rolling across the ceiling of the front porch,” Sebold said. “It also vented out the side window of the living room. Both windows had broken. The (main) fire was knocked down within 10 minutes, and then fire crews had to pull significant amounts of ceiling from the front porch and living room to extinguish (other) fire, which was getting into attic space.”

Firefighters at first had to work around a dangerous, arcing electrical wire that had fallen outside the burning home. “The only other hazard at the scene was fire had burned through the power line to the home, and it was arcing in the driveway, which they had to maneuver around,” Sebold said. He said an Ameren crew subsequently arrived to turn off the electricity to the property.

The four adult and one child occupants, who Sebold said are renting the home from a relative, all had exited the house by the time firefighters arrived. Alton Memorial Ambulance Service paramedics treated a woman tenant at the scene for smoke inhalation, then took her to Alton Memorial Hospital for further treatment.

“Fortunately, there were no other injuries,” he said.

The tenants have renters insurance for their belongings; the property owner has insurance on the house, with the company to determine what repair costs it would cover, Sebold said.

Four firefighters from the East Alton Fire Department responded to AFD’s residential fire mutual aid call. Those firefighters helped with the post-fire overhaul, which included pulling down even more ceiling materials in the search for hidden hot spots.

Sebold said he also called in four off-duty Alton firefighters to staff an additional engine company in event another call came in while on-duty crews overhauled the fire scene. That crew he called in did respond to a fire alarm at Alton Square shopping center, at which there was short power surge during a spate of lightning, but no fire. “It was a false alarm,” Sebold said.